The Florida Marlins made one of the most puzzling roster moves in recent Major League history on Saturday as they optioned outfielder Logan Morrison to Triple-A New Orleans. Normally I’d give a team the benefit of the doubt in a situation like this and say “I’m sure the Marlins know what they’re doing,” but not this time. This is just insane.

The 23-year-old Morrison is considered a key component of a young core that hopes to contend in the not-too-distant future. At the time of his demotion, the left fielder was hitting .249 with 17 home runs and 60 RBI. He is currently second on the team in home runs and RBI (behind fellow outfielder Mike Stanton in both categories).

Morrison said the following about hearing the news:

“I was about to get treatment on my knee and my arm that I just left on the warning track, but I got called into the office right there. I had no idea what it was. They said, ‘We exercised the right to option you to Triple-A,’ and I walked out.”

Morrison was then asked if anyone gave him a reason why he was being sent down and said the following:

“They didn’t give me anything. I asked for an explanation and the one I got was, ‘What are you hitting, .240?'”

They didn’t say anything about maybe the reason why I was hitting .240 is because I was getting a guy in from third by rolling over ground balls and not worrying about average and just trying to get the run in. Am I going to say that I’ve had the best of years or the year that I wanted to have? Absolutely not.”

Morrison has obviously not made team higher-ups happy with his twittering in the past as they asked him to tone things down, so you get the feeling this demotion might have nothing to do with baseball. Morrison later said he was heartbroken by the move and it’s clear he’s very upset by the whole episode.

In addition to optioning Morrison, the Marlins also released veteran Wes Helms.